“Sixty-four when she died. Same age as Sally, same school class for fourteen years.”
“Max has been cheating on Sally since their honeymoon. God knows what hell she’d been through all these years. Your mother was her best friend. Max would have known just how to manipulate your mom into sleeping with him, and Sally would know that. I can imagine a situation where Sally saw your mother as a victim as much as a transgressor.”
“You’re just trying to make me feel better.”
“No. I want to get to the truth. You said Sally stopped coming to book club for a month, right? Then she came back. So she agonized for a month. But then she and your mom made up.”
Hope shines in Nadine’s eyes. “You really think so?”
“Your mother was terminally ill. Sally had no illusions left about the man she’d married. I’ll bet all she cared about in the world by then was Paul and her grandson. Not where Max dipped his wick.”
“God, I hope you’re right.”
“I am. The problem is we can’t prove any of that. Not unless we turn up a long-lost diary or something.”
“That won’t happen. Mom never kept a diary.”
“Something just hit me,” I murmur. “What if these break-ins don’t have to do with you, but your mother?”
“The break-ins? What could my mother have had that anybody would want?”
“I don’t know. But if she had a secret relationship with Max, then who’s to say? Maybe Max asked Margaret to keep something for him.”
“No way. Mom might have slept with Max once or twice, but she didn’t like him. Or even trust him. In fact, in a lot of ways she despised him.”
“I’m sure. But this makes a lot more sense than you having something the Poker Club wants.”
Nadine looks up sharply. “Why do you think the Poker Club is behind the break-ins?”
“There’s something going on under all this that we don’t understand. Buck’s death, I get. But Sally’s? No. The break-ins at your store and house? And at other lawyers’ offices? I don’t get that, either.”
“They don’t all have to be connected. Do they?”
“In one little town? Sure they do. There’s one other thing. Your mother wasn’t the only one who was sick. It turns out Sally had a terminal illness, too. Dr. Kirby told me in confidence this afternoon, and he went to the police after that.”
Nadine stops pacing. She looks overwhelmed by this revelation. “Who else knew about that?”
“Only Sally and Dr. Kirby. She didn’t want anyone to know. Not even Max.”
“But . . . you think she really killed herself, then?”
“The illness is certainly grounds for a depressive state.”
“How long had she known she was ill?”
“I’m not sure. But she wouldn’t have known about it while your mother was alive. What are you thinking?”
Nadine is hugging herself, her brow knit with worry. “Knowing that makes me wonder if my mother being with Max might have been a trigger after all. If she was already depressed, I mean. Maybe Max taunted Sally or something. You know how cruel couples can be when they fight.”
“I guess . . . I see your point.”
“What does Jet think?” Nadine asks. “And why is she even defending that son of a bitch?”
While I try to think of a suitable answer, a loud banging echoes up the hallway. Three hard raps. Then a fourth. I was sure Jet slipped out by the back bedroom door. Has she come back?
The rapping sounds again, harder this time.
“That’s the front door,” I say, wondering who the hell it could be and how they got past my gate.
“You’re not expecting anybody?” Nadine whispers.
“Hell, no. And the gate’s locked.”
With my heart racing, I grab my pistol from a kitchen drawer. Nadine watches me with a deer-in-the-headlights look. That’s got to be Jet, I think, reaching instinctively for the burner phone in my pocket. But I don’t take it out in front of Nadine.
This time the knocking rattles the front wall of the house.
That’s a man’s hand, I realize. Paul’s?
“Open up, McEwan!” shouts a muffled voice that could be Paul’s. God, I hope Jet got away clean.
Walking to my little front foyer, I call, “Who’s out there?”
Nadine touches my shoulders from behind, and I jump.
“Max Matheson!” comes the reply. “Your best friend’s old man! Your ex–assistant football coach.”
Nadine spins me around, her eyes asking the same question I am: What the hell is Max doing here?
“Open up, Marshall! Goddamn it. I’m not armed.”
I grab Nadine and fast-walk her up the hall, whispering as we hurry toward the back bedroom. “I don’t know what Max is doing here, but I’m going to find out. I don’t want him even laying eyes on you. Either he broke in through my gate or he walked in from the woods. Either scenario’s bad.”
We move into the bedroom.
“Should I slip out the back door?” she asks.
“No. We don’t know he’s alone. Hide in the bathroom with your pistol. You’ll be locked behind two doors.”
Max bangs on the front door again.
Nadine lets me lead her into the master bath.
“This is it,” I tell her. “Lock the bedroom door after I go out, then come in here and lock this one.”
“I will.” She catches my wrist. “Ask Max who told Sally that he slept with my mother. If it really was a recent revelation, the bastard ought to know that.”
Nadine’s eyes are flashing with anger and determination.
“I will,” I promise. “Now focus. If anybody tries to force open this door, shoot them.”
Her eyes go wide. “Seriously?”
“Max is out on bail for murder. We don’t know what’s going on, and we can’t take chances.”
She nods uncertainly, her face pale.
“Can you do it?” I press. “Can you shoot through a closed door?”
Nadine nods once more, her jaw set tight.
I almost believe her.
Chapter 27
When I open my front door, I find Max Matheson standing in jeans and a bright red button-down shirt with a crawfish embroidered on the pocket. Though I’m an inch taller than Max, his cowboy boots put us at eye level. I’ve known those eyes since I was a boy, and in this moment they are reading my soul.
“You gonna ask me in or what?” he says with a friendly grin.
“How did you get into my place, Max?”
“Parked at the gate and walked. I wanted to observe the property in its natural state.” The light dancing in his eyes is hard to describe, but it makes plain that he’s enjoying himself.
“I don’t know what we have to talk about,” I tell him, not moving out of the doorway.
“Oh, I think you’re gonna be surprised, Goose.”
And with that he turns sideways and pushes between me and the doorframe, then walks toward my kitchen. My only options are to fight him or let him stay, and at sixty-six years old, Max could beat the hell out of most men I know in their forties. He doesn’t spend his time in the gym or running marathons. He’s simply a natural athlete who has remained active all his life. From a distance, his rangy frame and long muscles give him the look of a much younger man, and this, along with the handsomeness that marks all his family, is surely part of what has pulled so many women to him. But what makes me engage with Max today is my need to know what he knows—and what he wants.